Directed by Yasujiro Ozu - by Shiguéhiko Hasumi

About the Book

"First published in 1983, Shiguâehiko Hasumi's Directed by Yasujiråo Ozu has become one of the most influential books on cinema written in Japanese. This pioneering translation brings Hasumi's landmark work to an English-speaking public for the first time, inviting a new readership to engage with this astutely observed, deeply moving meditation on the oeuvre of one of the giants of world cinema. Complemented by a critical introduction from acclaimed film scholar Aaron Gerow and rendered fluidly in Ryan Cook's agile translation, this volume will grace the shelves of cinephiles for many years to come"--

Book Synopsis

First published in 1983, Shiguéhiko Hasumi's Directed by Yasujirō Ozu has become one of the most influential books on cinema written in Japanese. This pioneering translation brings Hasumi's landmark work to an English-speaking public for the first time, inviting a new readership to engage with this astutely observed, deeply moving meditation on the oeuvre of one of the giants of world cinema. Complemented by a critical introduction from acclaimed film scholar Aaron Gerow and rendered fluidly in Ryan Cook's agile translation, this volume will grace the shelves of cinephiles for many years to come.

From the Back Cover

"Shiguéhiko Hasumi is, quite simply, the greatest film critic in the world. We are finally able to savor his magisterial classic on Ozu, in a superb English translation. Subtle, provocative, forensic, philosophical: this is a film book for all time."--Adrian Martin, author of Mysteries of Cinema: Reflections on Film Theory, History and Culture 1982-2016

"Directed by Yasujirō Ozu is the most important book in my life. When I first encountered it in my early twenties, it taught me how difficult the simple undertaking of seeing a film actually is--and how pleasurable it can be as a result. This book thoroughly changed my way of looking at films, and also formed my filmmaking practice. The same can happen for readers today, who will come to realize that they had not really seen Ozu's films--or cinema itself, for that matter. I cannot help thinking that Ozu made the kinds of films he did just so that such a book would be written, believing that one day audiences would attempt to really see his films. What else could have inspired his unique approach? I know of no other film reading experience as devastating and alluring as this one."--Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Academy Award-nominated director of Drive My Car

"A definitive classic by a master in the field."--Paul Schrader, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of Taxi Driver and author of Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer

"Directed by Yasujirō Ozu is an original and essential contribution to the already-extensive bibliography about the great Japanese master. Hasumi intelligently challenges many of the conventional interpretations of Ozu's work with his unusual critical insight. Quite a discovery."--Víctor Erice, director of Close Your Eyes

"This is much more than a monograph for erudite cinephiles: it is a book of combat and adventure, a joyous exercise in free-spiritedness. Its ambitious prose, audacious thought, and rigorous argumentation produce a cascade of meanings that speak to the central stakes of a book of this kind (a reflection on the work of a major filmmaker) while at the same time pulverizing the limits of the genre. Reading it will bring joys you would scarcely expect from a film book, whether or not you are a fan of Japanese cinema."--Jean-Michel Frodon, former editor in chief of Cahiers du cinéma

"Shiguéhiko Hasumi, the most influential film critic in Japan since the 1980s, single-handedly resurrected the status of Ozu with the publication of this book. There is no Japanese film scholar who is not inspired by Hasumi's critical method. Paying scrupulous attention to what is visible on the screen, no matter how banal the appearance, Hasumi reveals how conscious Ozu was of the capabilities and limits of cinema as a medium as well as to the history of filmmaking. Ryan Cook's nuanced translation makes Hasumi's prose accessible to both scholars and aficionados of cinema."--Daisuke Miyao, author of Japonisme and the Birth of Cinema​

"My favorite critical study of Ozu, for its clarifying critique of the exoticism we invariably bring to this great filmmaker's work. Hasumi offers an exciting introduction to fresh paths that film criticism can take."--Jonathan Rosenbaum, author of In Dreams Begin Responsibilities: A Jonathan Rosenbaum Reader

"This book completely changes our view of Ozu. Hasumi's analysis counters the tendency to exoticize Japan, unveiling the cruel ambiguity of Ozu's images through the closest of reading, the finest of description. Essential."--Bernard Eisenschitz, author of Fritz Lang au travail

"Hasumi has long been a seismic force in film theory and history. Directed by Yasujirō Ozu shows us Ozu's distinctive cinematic idiom through an equally distinctive engagement with 'Ozu' as cinema itself. Ryan Cook's elegant translation brings this formidable oeuvre fully into English for the first time."--Anne McKnight, author of Nakagami, Japan: Buraku and the Writing of Ethnicity

"Directed by Yasujirō Ozu brings Hasumi's decades-old paradigm shift in seeing Ozu to English-speaking readers in full form for the first time. Its welcome shock waves are channeled by Ryan Cook's supple yet grounded language, which not only renders the text accessible but reignites its essential provocations in a dazzling new idiom. A call to cinephile attention."--Earl Jackson, Associate Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Cruz

"Hasumi's book is as idiosyncratic as it is influential, having inspired an entire generation of Japanese critics, scholars, and film directors. This highly anticipated--even courageous--translation provides a new entry point for the experience of Ozu's cinema."--Markus Nornes, author of Brushed in Light: Calligraphy in East Asian Cinema

Review Quotes

"The English that [Ryan Cook] has produced is extremely readable and elegant, the claims and arguments cogent . . . .It is a boon to have this important book finally available in English."-- "The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory"

"Highly recommended."-- "CHOICE"

"Although Shiguéhiko Hasumi is among the world's great critics and philosophers of cinema, his writings are strangely hard to come by in the Anglosphere. This makes the University of California Press publication of his Directed by Yasujiro Ozu, translated by Ryan Cook and deftly contextualized in an introduction by Aaron Gerow, a publishing event of immense proportions. . . .It is sure to change standard Anglophone interpretations of this central figure in the history of cinema."-- "Gagosian Quarterly"

"Hasumi's Directed by Yasujirō Ozu is a distinctive view of a much- discussed director, making this an overdue but very timely and welcome publication."-- "Cineaste"

"For those of us who don't read kanji, or who struggle to make their way through Hasumi 's sentences, whose length rivals Proust or Henry James, this meticulous and precise version, in direct contact with the text, with a side, a maverick supplement, will be a landmark."-- "East Asia"

About the Author

Shiguéhiko Hasumi (1936-) is a film and literary critic and scholar. He received his doctorate from the University of Paris, Sorbonne, and was the twenty-sixth president of the University of Tokyo (1997-2001). He has received numerous awards, including the Yomiuri Bungaku Award for Anti-Nihongoron (Han-Nihongoron, 1977), the Geijutsu Senshō Award for Portrait of a Mediocre Artist: On Maxime Du Camp (Bonʻyō na geijutsuka no shōzō Makushimu Dyu Kan-ron, 1988), and L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Commandeur from the French Ministry of Culture (1999). His many other works include Lectures on Hollywood Film History (Hariuddo eigashi kōgi, 1993), Godard, Manet, Foucault (Godāru, Manē, Fūkō, 2008), On Madame Bovary (Bovarī fujin-ron, 2014), What Is a Shot? (Shotto to wa nani ka, 2022), and On John Ford (Jon Fōdo-ron, 2022), all untranslated. Hasumi's productive relationships with influential filmmakers including Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Manoel de Oliveira, Theo Angelopoulos, Wim Wenders, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, Pedro Costa, Leos Carax, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Shinji Aoyama, and Ryūsuke Hamaguchi are well documented.

Aaron Gerow is A. Whitney Griswold Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures, and of Film and Media Studies, at Yale University. He is the author of Visions of Japanese Modernity: Articulations of Cinema, Nation, and Spectatorship, 1895-1925.
Ryan Cook is a film scholar, translator, and librarian. He completed a PhD in Japanese film history at Yale University and has taught at Yale, Harvard, and Emory University.